Read Online The Salton Killings by Sally Spencer - Free Book Online

“I’ve got a daughter, an’ I worry.”
    So he had been right about her expression.
    â€œCourse you worry, luv,” he assured her. “What mother wouldn’t? But I don’t think you need be bothered about anything happening to your little girl.”
    She smiled again, a half-amused, half-mocking grin that had nothing forced about it.
    â€œ
My little girl
,” she said. “Sup up. You’ve just earned yourself a pint on the house.”
    He would have liked to have taken advantage of her offer and stayed longer, but he had things to do. There was half a pint still left in his glass and he drank it with one deep swallow.
    â€œI like a chap who can knock back his ale like a man,” Liz Poole said.
    Maltham Police Records Department was situated in the basement of the Headquarters. The room was badly lit and stuffy. The filing cabinets had an air of neglect, the files in them seemed thin on material, and the material itself was badly presented.
    â€œIf they’d give me the run of this place for just six months . . .” Rutter thought.
    It was a different world from the Yard Central Records Office. He had put just one call through to them, and they had been back with the information he wanted less than twenty minutes later. Only one of the boat owners who had been in Salton the day Diane Thorburn died had a criminal record. Jackie McLeash – city of origin: Glasgow – had done six months some years earlier for receiving stolen property, which scarcely made him a prime suspect in a murder case.
    He flicked through the records of sexual offenders. Flashers, peeping Toms, fathers who had seduced their daughters. They were a pitiful bunch. Then he came across the case of Fred Foley, a Salton man, and felt his pulse quicken. A few years earlier, Foley had enticed a girl under the bridge by the salt works and asked her to let him feel her up. When she had refused, Foley had thrown her into the canal. But as he read on, Rutter felt the heavy weight of disappointment descending on him. Pushing a girl into the water on the spur of the moment was a very different thing from cold-bloodedly planning in advance to strangle one. Besides, Foley hadn’t followed it through. He’d stood there and let the girl climb out of the canal again.
    It was not enough to take back to Woodend.
    Rutter cross-referenced the sexual offences files with individuals’ named files, jotted down the details of other crimes and cross-referenced again, his search taking him from Breaking and Entering right through to Vandalism. Nothing.
    His mouth was parched, he could feel the sweat clinging to his body, but still he would not give up. There had to be something else. He started searching for the something else in all the sections he had not previously checked. He found it in a dusty file stored in the drawer between Larceny – Grand, and Negligence – Criminal.
    Davenport delivered his report in a dull, flat monotone. He had checked out the workers at Brierley’s. None of them had been absent for anything like ten minutes between ten fifteen and eleven fifteen on Tuesday morning, he had their foremen’s words for that. A few discreet questions had confirmed that none of the foremen had slipped away either. He had talked to the Thorburns and got the name of Diane’s best friend.
    â€œIt’s all good work, Constable,” Woodend said, “but your attitude’s wrong.”
    â€œSir?”
    â€œYou’re sulkin’, Davenport. You’re takin’ it as a personal insult that I’ve requested the help of Cadet Black, aren’t you?”
    Davenport shifted uneasily in his seat.
    â€œI think I know as much about the village as he does, sir, an’ I’ve got more experience.”
    Woodend clasped his hands, laid them on the desk, and leaned forward.
    â€œDo you? Do you indeed?” he asked. “I’ll tell you what I’m goin’